Yamaha Motif-Rack XS Synthesizer - Rack-mountable tone-generator

Key benefits compared to other products

Even with today's multi-gigabyte software instruments, there's a huge advantage in having a world-class selection of fully editable sounds, ready to use without any loading times or CPU-hit. The Motif Rack XS ticks all those boxes - an award-winning synthesis engine and jaw-dropping sounds in one compact unit.

Overview

Inspiration can strike at any time, but there's no need to wait for it. The MOTIF-RACK XS is packed full of inspiring sounds, exciting rhythms and expressive control that spur your creativity to new heights - any time, any place.

The compact MOTIF-RACK XS gives you an enormous selection of Voices based on the popular,professional-level MOTIF XS, studio-level effect processing,five real-time Control Knobs for tweaking 20 different parameters as you play,a wide-ranging library of convenient Multi-part presets,thousands of automatic Arpeggios at your fingertips, and seamless hardware/software integration. Never before has such comprehensive control, music-making versatility andsheer sonic power been combined in such a small, easy-to-use package. This little powerhouse has all you need - effectively doing the work of several tone generators and processors.Simply hook it up to a laptop or a keyboard workstation and you've got an entire studio's worth of sounds and effects at your fingertips - plus a whole world of inspiration you can tap into.

The MOTIF-RACK XS features:

Wide range of dynamic and authentic Voices

Total of 1,152 Voices and 65 Drum Kits

Powerful Arpeggio function - simultaneous playback of four types, total 6,633 available

Five real-time Control Knobs for adjusting the sound as you perform or record

Convenient, intuitive editing of all settings from computer with MOTIF-RACK XS Editor

Full integration with the popular Cubase series audio/MIDI recording software

Features

WEALTH OF VOICES FOR EVERY APPLICATION

Utilizing the very same Voices and the same tone generationarchitecture as the famed MOTIF XS, the compact MOTIF-RACK XS gives you everything you need for your studio productions and live performances. Boasting a full 1,152 Voices and 65 Drum Kits, this versatile tone generator is packed full of luscious grand pianos, realistic sounds for virtually every instrument in the orchestra, vintage organs and electric pianos, expressive guitars, powerful basses, synthesizer sounds of every stripe, from classic to cutting-edge contemporary, ethnic instruments, as well as a huge variety of drum kits and percussion sets to perfectly match any music style. What's more, the MOTIF-RACK XS has a synthesis engine filled with 355 MB of waveform data, for a total of 2,670 separate waveforms - an amazingly broad selection of building blocks you can use to create your own Voices. These can be saved to the three User Voice banks, letting you store up to 384 of your original Voices on the instrument itself. MAIN CATEGORY - Piano (Acoustic Piano) - Keys (Keyboard) - Organ - Guitar - Bass - String (Strings) - Brass - SaxWW (Sax / Woodwind) - SynLd (Synth Lead) - Pads (Synth Pad/Choir) - SyCmp (Synth Comp) - CPerc (Chromatic Percussion) - Dr / Pc (Drum / Percussion) - S.EFX (Sound Effect) - M. EFX (Musical Effect) - Ethnc (Ethnic)

VERSATILE MULTI MODE FOR FULL MUSIC PRODUCTION

The Multi presets provide a convenient library or multiinstrument settings you can instantly call up when composing or arranging. Each has several different Parts pre-programmed with special Voices and other settings for a variety of music genres and applications, such as R&B, hip-hop, jazz, film soundtrack, electronica, Latin styles, ballad, rock and much, much more. Just select the template you want, and instantly start recording your own song demos or full-fledged recordings. Up to 128 of your own original User Multis can be stored, too.

STUDIO-QUALITY EFFECTS

The awesome sonic power of the MOTIF-RACK XS continues with the comprehensive, professional-level effects. Providing eight Insertion effects, two System effects, a Master effect block, as well as independent Part EQ and Master EQ, this instrument gives you more processing power than any other rack module. While the System effects (Reverb and Chorus) let you sweeten each instrument Part in the overall mix, the Insertion effects (53 available types) let you enhance or transform individual instruments as needed. The MOTIF-RACK XS also has various newly developed VCM effects, reproducing the sound of vintage processors and expensive effect units.

PREVIEWING VOICES WITH THE AUDITION FEATURE

When selecting sounds, the name of a Voice doesn't always tell you enough about the sound - you need to actually hear it. With the Audition feature, you can hear Voices before you select them, and not even have to play a connected keyboard to do so. For example, you can use Category Search to call up a list of electric bass Voices, select one that interests you, then press the AUDITION button to hear a special riff or phrase using that Voice. You can even keep the AUDITION button on and press the up/down keys to select other Voices, and instantly hear what they sound like!

POWERFUL CATEGORY SEARCH FEATURE

With the enormous amount of Voices to select from, you need a way to easily and quickly get the Voices you want. That's where Category Search comes in. The convenient push-andturn knob to the right of the LCD lets you instantly call up main instrument categories (such as Piano, Guitar, Bass, Strings, Pads, etc.), select sub categories if needed (such as acoustic, electric and synth within the Bass category) then quickly scroll through a list of all the Voices that match. For super-fast selection, you can compile a Favorite category that contains just those Voices you use the most.

ULTRA-CONVENIENT REAL-TIME SOUND CONTROL

There's an enormous amount of music making power under the hood of the MOTIF-RACK XS and there's no easier way to get at that power than with the five Control Knobs. These convenient knobs let you tweak the sound of the instrument in real time - saving you the hassle of having to wade through several display pages to get to the parameter you want to change. Need to adjust the reverb level for the selected Voice? Press the SELECT button to call up the fourth row of parameters, then turn Knob 2. Want to quickly change the tone of the Voice, such as taking a little bit of the high end off of a piano Voice? Call up the third row and adjust the various EQ bands - using Knob 5 to the highs. Or boost the bass of a Voice with Knob 1. If you want to adjust the volume of the selected Voice, call up the first row and turn Knob 5. Two of the knob settings are even assignable, letting you choose your own favorite parameters for custom control.

Easy USB connection

One USB cable is all you need for MIDI integration between the MOTIF-RACK XS and your computer-based music production system or DAW. Simply set your software to recognize the MOTIF-RACK XS port, and you have seamless, bi-directional communication for recording and playback.

Optional mLAN16E2 interface

For those who want even more input/output flexibility, Yamaha's optional mLAN16E2 interface lets you connect your MOTIF-RACK XS to your computer via a Firewire and communicate 16-out, 16-in audio in addition to all of your MIDI data via a single Firewire cable. This allows you to simultaneously record 14 individual Parts along with the main stereo output from the instrument to your computer. You can also route three stereo busses from your DAW back to the MOTIF-RACK XS for monitoring and even additional processing using effects (with no extra load on your computer's CPU). The AI Driver is a peer to peer driver. It allows you simplely setup between one computer and one MOTIF-RACK XS. Extensions for Steinberg DAW will even automatically setup all your audio and MIDI connections to Cubase making it incredibly simple to add the MOTIF-RACK XS into your Cubase system.

MOTIF-RACK XS Editor

This special Editor software provides comprehensive control over all Voice, Multi and Drum settings on the MOTIF-RACK XS - and even gives you access to detailed parameters not available from the front panel. The graphic display lets you conveniently tweak the settings by simple click-and-drag operations. What's more the software stays in perfect synchronization with the hardware - any changes you make on one device are immediately reflected in the other. The Multi section uses a graphic mixer interface for comprehensive, intuitive control over the 16 Parts of each Multi. It offers enormous editing power and simplicity, since the MOTIF-RACK XS effectively becomes an integral part of your computer music system. The MOTIF-RACK XS Editor can be used stand-alone within the Studio Manager program (both of which can be downloaded for free from the Yamaha website below). Moreover, if you're working with Steinberg's Cubase or Nuendo, these programs can be used as part of the comprehensive Studio Connections system - hardware/software solution that adds even greater power and versatility to your computer music system.